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Thursday December 21st


Not too much going on, so it seems.

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John Duff and Sandeep, paso a doble:


Hello Sandeep,

J:
First, let me say how fine it is to spend some time, prior to the upcoming
holidays, back on NDS. Secondly, how equally fine it is to converse with
you.

<snip>

S:
Yes, but your observation seems to suggest a dichotomy between the two
(whether to be resolved or not is a different matter)

If there was none, apologisies for mis -reading.

J: Language. How can one apprehend that apparent conflict in another is
okay with the one doing the expressing by using words that are formulated
and bounded by human dualistic experience through time [history]. I either
am or am not experiencing a dichotomy.

Okay, it can be done, but I'm not the poet Dan is.

Put another way, there may be interpreted, from what I wrote, a potential
battle between how I think things should be and how things are. An
imbalance.

Is it possible that the imbalance is simply recognized and accepted? Does
the articulation of the process observed then mean one 'is' that imbalance?

Bleaching any emotional content from the words 'right' and 'wrong'. I would
say it is 'right' to suppose this imbalance and conflict from what I wrote.
But this supposition could be 'wrong'.

Language.

<snip>

S:
So how do you John address them, at this point of time?

J:
The same as above. Knot and rug. Both exist, one on a different scale than
the other. This is okay, yet paradoxical. It creates an imbalance in
perception. The imbalance simply is abided.

Exquisite.

Tension.

<snip>

S:
A "sense" is finally a thought.
And actualized thought is action which makes up behaviour.

J: Have not verified this. Will reflect on these observations. I would
intuit the basis of these statements is 'mind' as ultimate determinist.
Please correct me if this last supposition is wrong in how you see it.

<snip>

John wrote:
This really depends on what you sense we are here for, doesn't it? Cosmic
game or learning experience. No individuality or potential individuality.

S:
Right.
So what do you say?
Is there a entity itself which then has the volition to learn, to become?

J: What do I know of other entities other than what I have been told.
Nothing. Looking to myself, then, and speaking only for myself, the answer
is yes. Observing others I [apparently] see the same volition. I deduce
then, I am not unique.

I can infer, perhaps erroneously, some motive force common to us. A rug
backing knots - making this analogy even more threadbare.

So, then, back to fundamentals, humans as concepts, notions. Or humans as
possible islands of individual potentiality - rug makers. I say both.

J:
While it is my current impression that none of these need be exclusive of
one another I honor those that consider this to be the case.

S:
How John?
Either there is an entity with an existential reality, with an independent
existence which has the volition to do, to learn to become, to move from A
to B, from an un-enlightened state to an enlightened state (whatever be the
path, method, the particular hoola hoop) thereby in essence operates within
a framewok of duality, or this very whole process, the whole of
phenomenality, this whole changing and becoming, is an appearance.

Both cannot "be", at a given point of time.

J: Interesting concept, but the image transmits to me a wholly unimaginative
and limited Uncreate. I have a difficult time digesting the impression thus
rendered emotionally. Though it does satisfy my head, particularly one part
of it.

I still say both.

This, to me, is so since I must reject experience. This statement is
understood to be unreasonably small, self-centered and short sighted.

I could also rearrange your wording to say "this very whole process, the
whole of phenomenality, this whole changing and becoming, is an appearance."
For the purpose of educating "an entity with an existential reality, with an
independent existence which has the volition to do, to learn to become, to
move from A to B, from an un-enlightened state to an enlightened state."

So, I still say both. And the question remains, "cosmic game" or "learning
experience". Discussions of responsibility arise from the aforementioned
answer.

I obviously say "learning experience", which is not to exclude having fun at
school.

<snip>

S:
Who is it that is observing the conditioning and then choosing from the
options of characteristics?

J: The rug? Understanding that 'no one' is observing is also a possible
answer. Again, we have to answer the fundamental question.

S:
This sense of discrimination through which you appear to choose, itself is
the conditioning is it not?

J: To a certain extent, yes. On a larger scale no. This assumes a choice
is made. This also assumes an unconditioned state could not be experienced.
I would offer that you might agree an unconditioned state can be
experienced.

Yes?

<snip>

S:
There is no argument.
We are exploring the basic tenet, is there a self which is nothing but a
sense of discrimination and thus having a sense of volition?

J:
Yes, basic tenets. There is profit here. "Game" or "school" in my
formulation.

S:
Or is it a myth, a manifestation of divine hypnosis, Maya, whatever?

J:
To make the "game" real Maya is needed. To make the "lesson" real, and sink
in, and be one's own, the same is necessary. Would you not agree?

S:
The question that may be posed if it is a myth, then who is it that is
exploring, investigating this basic tenet, this myth itself ?

J:
"If it is a myth", is operant here, and, as mentioned before, myth is not
exclusive of game playing or learning.

Is this dialog to convince you of something different or to assure myself
that another view is possible? Or vice-versa. It is neither and both. It
certainly is a pleasure.

S:
Any thoughts arising on that John?

Yes. "To be or knot to be."

<snip>

J:
Along with the question of your initial impulses that brought you to the
level of realization where you are now. We are back at fundamental
questions. Back in our garden. Why, then, either impulse? Abstractions
distract. Even the 'why', as we can see, from pure being.

S:
Could you clarify that John? I did not get it (which of course is not
surprising with age creeping up)

J: The observation was that we might attribute volition to myth. Yet I
assume volition in your existence to even have this conversation. The,
"volition to do, to learn to become, to move from A to B, from an
un-enlightened state to an enlightened state", as you say. I could be
wrong, but I don't think so.

When flower blooms it manifests the potential of the seed. And in this
blooming, this moving from existence in one dimension into another mode of
existence, does the flower then separate itself from the stem and leaves
that support and nourish it?

Could we then assume that the denial of our past experience is something
analogous to this flower performing such an act?

There is no debate or question of the underlying unity in/of everything.
Conceptually or experientially. There is no question dissolving the
'me-entity' gives this experience.

This discussion is an abstraction of the assumption of fundamental tenets.
All else is built on that. The question is and remains [for me] "cosmic
game" or "cosmic school". Cosmic game can assume no individuality, no soul,
no spirit, just pure being. Cosmic school, however, does not assume such a
neat, intuitive fit with non-entities, there is just no point.

The basis of my observation is personal experience in a phenomenal,
dualistic existence. It is all I have as a basis. The rest are stories
someone else is recounting to me.

The assumption is this, why this impulse resolving itself to the word we
call responsibility? Why this impulse towards volition and perfection,
since, phenomenally at least, little is wasted? Except by man, who, we are
told has 'choice'.

>From my perspective, the existence of these self-observable things fit the
"cosmic school" model better than they do the "cosmic game" model. If not,
they would not exist. They would not be part of the rug.

John wrote:

Passé doble.

S:
EH?

J:
Uptempo Latin dance for two.

Most probably misspelled.

Warm regards,
John

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John Duff and Dave, what does the 8 of clubs know? :


D:
John Duff wonders out loud:

J:
Yes. As opposed to silently thinking I'm right.

D:
Hi John,

It's been good to hear you in the past. I know, that for the moment, the
answer is squared away in your mind, but its asking reverberates through the
same
medium which prompted it. By medium, I don't mean NDS so much as I mean,
life's purpose.

J:
Also good to hear from you Dave.

I'm back for a refresher course. Get the batteries recharged and all. No
where else is the dialog more stimulating, varied, meaningful and profitable
than here on NDS.

D:
Life's purpose, or "intent". The reason for all this, is the ongoing
question, and the ongoing answer all at the same time. The question and
answer,
coexisting simultaneously, like a New Years Eve "sparkler", the fuel and the
fire,
sparkling and sputtering in the eternal NOW.

J:
Surely.

D:
Responsibility is a thing that seems futile, the cards are already laid,
and I'm the eight of clubs!

J: So it is said.

D:
One game will be lost, another won. The eight of clubs, each time has its
position in that. We know that it only seems like the games all have
mysterious endings, we know that in retrospect, no game could have turned
out differently... well it could have, but it didn't...
We know that it's always now and the game is what it IS. What could have
been and what IS are imaginary differences, just like what will be, against
what
we foresee. So responsibility? What is it...?

J:
Well, it seems to me you are talking more about choice, than responsibilty,
and as it pertains to external affairs more than internal and some imagined
result compared to what actually happens.

But, clearly, choice enters somewhere in discussions of responsibility.

Then, again, from my perspective, responsibility can be purely internal.
What, for instance, drives our tenor in interactions with others? This is
the [my] primary focus of discussion on responsibility.

It is in the not knowing of another's frame of reference when they use a
word and the projection of our own interpretations of what that word means
onto what the other said that causes confusion - often conflict.

The external world is too large an engine for me to worry about. Least of
to tilt at windmills. I can just look to bring some mindfulness to my
interfaces with that external world. The resulting mindfulness would be the
product of what impulse?

One could easily say 'responsibility'.

One might just as easily say 'cause and effect'.

D:
I figure, it's to BE the eight of clubs.

J:
This enjoining to BEing stems from a sense of what?

D:
You know what I mean don't you?

J:
I might, and I might not. The eight of clubs has some additional meaning to
me it may not have for others.

In any case, your mention of the 'be'ing of the card is not lost here. Just
trying to 'be' my own suit and face.

Whether this happened by accident or intent - doesn't matter that much,
since, however it unfolded one must play the hand one is dealt. As well as
one can play it.

Which stems from a sense of what?

One could easily say 'responsibility'.

One might just as easily say 'art'.


Warm regards,
John

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Gloria, Milarepa. Jerry, nondual activism:


Gloria Lee wrote:
>
> Forwarding this for anyone who may have children around this age. Also the
> iamvalley website appears to be a very newly constructed one, in need of
> articles, for anyone inclined. Reading about the IAM mission seems to fit in
> with the new trend of activism, it also has a great interactive website
design.
>
> http://www.iamvalley.com/story_display/story_display.html?id=2
>


Hi Gloria,

I visited this website and it is requiring me to look further into what
I mean by nondual activism. The website seems to link to all things New
Age. It stands for certain principles. I need to make clear that the
nondual activism I'm talking about, if it's worth its nondual salt,
stands for or against nothing. One asks, How can one be an activist and
be for or against nothing in particular.

I ask you Gloria, and all who have helped to create the Nonduality
Salon, HarshaSatsangh and other internet communities, to look at exactly
what you -- what we -- have done. We have brought about change. We moved
from a condition of limited freedom to one of greater freedom. We have
set people free from the shackles of their teachers and their doubts. We
have shown people how to lead, how to stand alone, how to stand free,
how to speak with authority, how to shovel away every particle posing as
Truth in order to see what is neither Truth nor the absence of Truth. We
have stood scientists and the unemployable in the same circle with
Ramana and Jesus. We have shown that communities can be built and
sustained without the presence of any one individual who everybody
thinks is spiritually a cut above everyone else. We have freed ourselves
and others from spiritual bondage in which teachers, masters, gurus
would like to keep us all our lives.

What I describe above sounds an awful lot like activism. Yes, that's
what I'm saying. If any of you feel you have contributed to the reality
of these communities, you are an activist. An activist is one who is
aggressive in the name of a cause. I don't know if any of those
responsible for these communities has ever seen him- or herself as
aggressive in the name of a cause, but please look again at all you have
done and said over the last two or so years. I dare say we are abounding
in activists.

Yet what kind of activist are we? The handful, Gloria included, who
broke away from the Kundalini list, can taste the activist nature of
what we did. We were activists. That was an aggressive act in the name
of a cause. The cause was freedom of expression and the development of a
community which could share freedom of expression. None of us ever
stopped to think of our acts as activists. But they were.

Therefore, I suggest that the purest activism knows not itself; it is
simply an act toward freedom. It is not the wish to help the ecology. In
my activism it doesn't matter if one is growing forests or burning them
down. That's how radical my activism is. (In time it will turn into
Nondual Terrorism, but one piece of insanity at a time.) (No, it is not
a terrorism of physical violence, but of violence to cherished nondual
adherences, and the 'violence' will be carried out by artists and film
makers.)

In my nondual activism I will be looking for something. At first I'll be
listing nondual activists who keep a high profile. I'll be talking about
the esoteric side of activism. I'll be encouraging people to be open to
movements of greater freedom. I'll be defining and re-defining activism
and nondual activism. I'll be laying a foundation for a new kind of
activism. I am an activist's activist for I will free the activists. No
longer will they require a cause! This is an amazing thing. It is truly
nondual activism.

Stay tuned!

Jerry

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> ~ I am offering a solution - to see ourselves as we are -
> our foolishness and our perfection.
>
> Xan

Then what? Like, are you going to stand mezmerised in the mirror
forever?

Chaz

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